Ronald was seated with his father at breakfast in the hall or dining-room of the tower. The table was covered with viands of every kind, exhibiting all the profuseness of a true Scottish breakfast,—tea, coffee, cold venison, cheese, oaten bannocks, &c., &c., &c., and a large silver-mouthed bottle, containing most potent usquebaugh, distilled for the laird’s own use by Alpin Oig Stuart in one of the dark and dangerous chasms on the banks of the Isla, a spot unknown to the exciseman, a personage much dreaded and abhorred in all Highland districts. The old cailloch, Janet, was in attendance, weeping and muttering to herself. Iverach was without the tower, making the yard ring to the spirit-stirring notes of— "We’ll awa to Shirramuir, An’ haud the whigs in order;" and he strode to and fro, blowing furiously, as if to keep up the failing spirit of his tough old heart. Mr. Stuart said little, but took his morning meal as usual. Now and then he bit his nether lip, his eye glistened, and his brow was knit, to disguise the painful emotions that filled his heart. Ronald ate but little and sat totally silent, gazing with swimming eyes, while his heart swelled almost to bursting, on the lofty hills and dark pine woods, which, perchance, he might never more behold; and the sad certainty that slowly passing years would elapse ere he again stood by his paternal hearth, or beheld his father’s face,—if, indeed, he was ever to behold it again,—raised within him emotions of the deepest sadness. "Alas!" thought he, "how many years may roll away before I again look on all I have loved so long; and what dismal changes may not have taken place in that time!" "Hui-uigh! Ochon—ochanari!" cried the old woman, unable to restrain herself longer, as she sunk upon a settle in the recess of the hall window. "He is going forth to the far awa land of the stranger, where the hoodiecraw and fox pyke the banes of the dead brave; but he winna return to us, as the eagle’s brood return to their eyrie among the black cliffs o’ bonnie Craigonan." "He shall! old woman. What mean you by these disheartening observations in so sad an hour as this?" said the old gentleman sternly, roused by that prophetic tone which never falls without effect on the ear of a Scottish Highlander. "Dinna speak sae to me, laird. God sain me! I read that in his bonnie black een which tells me that they shall never again look on mine." "Hoigh! prutt, trutt," said Iverach, whom her cry had summoned to the spot, "the auld teevil of a cailloch will pe casting doon Maister Ronald’s heart when it should pe at the stoutest. Huisht, Janet, and no be bedeviling us with visions and glaumorie just the noo."